It won't seem so at first, but after a while you'll realize that your first year at Harvard closely resembles a planned marriage. Out of the blue, you're forced to live with someone you don't know. The other person will expect you to do your share of the housework and complain loudly when you take too long in the shower.

Like some marriages, you gradually may grow tired of your spouse/roommate, preferring instead to spend your time outside the room in hopes of more pleasant companionship. These "affairs" may be the only way to make your Harvard experience bearable if your roomie is too annoying, but be careful...Glenn Close may be out there.

In some cases, you and your roommate will have what divorce courts call "irreconcilable differences," a euphemism for "I hate you--DIE!" In some cases, you will plot to kill, or at least maim, the person who has been inflicted on you. In some of those cases, rare though they may be, you will succeed.

You'll meet people--a lot of people--who claim to live with the Roommate from Hell. And not all of them are lying.

But before you start to think that all Harvard rooming groups are doomed to endless fighting over who ate whose Doritos, you should know that some folks are able to keep that special flame alive. Better stated, they are able to keep from strangling each other.

Like my first-year rooming group in Holworthy 9, for example. We were a strange bunch, with very little in common: a boisterous Jewish comic from New Jersey, an Italian football player, a WASPy athlete from Massachusetts and an Irish thug from Brooklyn.

In spite of our differences, or maybe because of them, we got along great all year. I honestly cannot recall us having a single fight the whole time we lived together.

It all started when Glenn, my New Jersey roommate, called me to introduce himself. Since I was too lazy to get in touch with the other two roommates, Glenn's objective analysis was all the information I had about them.

Glenn told me that Philip from Beverly was a very large offensive lineman who really didn't like being called Philip. Instead, he wanted to be called "Duke." And, Glenn said, Mike from Wayland was doing something in China for the summer.

Although Glenn said they seemed kind of strange, at least Duke and Mike weren't as bad as the roommate one of his friends got, a guy who warned Glenn's friend that he "liked to wear capes."

Roughly 45 minutes into our conversation, Glenn said, "Colin, I'm glad you seem normal. I was getting concerned about who I'd be living with."

At that point, I asked Glenn if he was bringing up a record player so I could listen to my Metallica albums. Glenn paused, then said he had to go.

When I arrived for Orientation Week, I was surprised to find Duke asleep in the room. He was about as big as I thought he'd be, which is pretty impressive since I was conjuring up the image of Mighty Joe Young all summer.

Duke had moved into the room early because he was on Dorm Crew the week before, and he had already claimed a bottom bunk. I was not going to object, given the nasty squint he gave me when I introduced myself. I didn't realize that he couldn't see without his contact lenses, but I felt a little more relaxed a few minutes later when I helped him escape after he had locked himself into the bathroom.

Duke didn't quite fit the jock stereotype. Sure he wore sweats and a baseball cap all the time--the standard jock outfit (he soon stopped wearing the cap after Glenn started a rumor that it covered his bald spot). But Duke had a part-time job, spent more time studying than anyone I knew and went to bed no later than 12:30 a.m. on weeknights. The only bad part is that when I slumped into bed an hour or two later, Duke was already snoring gale-force winds.